Godness!
Thank goodness Colorado voters passed Amendment 41 last week, shielding this state from the insidious possibility that a lobbyist might ply a lawmaker with a latte. Some of those voters might actually believe they've toppled Big Money from its political throne - as if Gill, Stryker and their ilk were the purified essence of Colorado's grass roots.
Imagine that Gill decides next spring that he would like some face time with Gov. Bill Ritter, and dispatches a well-paid underling to request a meeting. Does anyone seriously doubt that Ritter would clear a spot on his calendar for this wealthy liberal activist who dispenses cash as freely as a Saudi sheik at a roulette table?
Do you suppose the governor would make as much time - any time - for, say, your middle-class brother-in-law or mother?
We are supposed to feel so much better now that lobbyists have been reined in - that lawmakers have been liberated from the blandishments of hired guns with their supposedly grubby expense accounts.
Here in Colorado, we don't like our monied class buying influence with anything so paltry as a lunch and a beer. But if they buy influence and access by dropping millions during an election cycle, then that's another story: They will be celebrated for their commitment by some of the very people who so firmly endorsed Amendment 41.
Imagine that Gill decides next spring that he would like some face time with Gov. Bill Ritter, and dispatches a well-paid underling to request a meeting. Does anyone seriously doubt that Ritter would clear a spot on his calendar for this wealthy liberal activist who dispenses cash as freely as a Saudi sheik at a roulette table?
Do you suppose the governor would make as much time - any time - for, say, your middle-class brother-in-law or mother?
We are supposed to feel so much better now that lobbyists have been reined in - that lawmakers have been liberated from the blandishments of hired guns with their supposedly grubby expense accounts.
Here in Colorado, we don't like our monied class buying influence with anything so paltry as a lunch and a beer. But if they buy influence and access by dropping millions during an election cycle, then that's another story: They will be celebrated for their commitment by some of the very people who so firmly endorsed Amendment 41.
